[B]irth control is not all that Ms. Fluke believes private health insurance must cover. She also, apparently, believes that it is discrimination deserving of legal action if “gender reassignment” surgeries are not covered by employer provided health insurance. She makes these views clear in an article she co-edited with Karen Hu in the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law. The title of the article . . . is “Employment Discrimination Against LGBTQ Persons” and was published in the Journal’s 2011 Annual Review.

This law school journal article is the sort of thing that might have been discovered about Fluke’s background, had the Democrats who put Fluke forward as a witness done so with the usual 72-hour advance notice. Here’s one brief quote from the article:

Now, imagine Fluke trying to defend this language about “heterosexist” policies in a public hearing, with Republican members of the committee questioning her about whether religious institutions (or private businesses, or taxpayers) should also be required to foot the bill for “gender reassignment.”

Alas, I can’t come up with a good joke (although her hair kind of reminds me of my kindergarten teacher, a strict woman of German background, who, for some reason, both I and my sister, two years later imagined as having a penis. Because of her strictness? Anyhoo. There is a resemblance in appearance.).

To say the least, there is no reason for taxpayers to pay for sex changes. This is as elective as elective can get.

OK, she put herself up there to testify; she’s maybe a fair target on that basis, but that’s not why she’s getting heat – she’s getting heat because of Limbaugh. It seems to me that that’s totally unjust and out of proportion with her perceived sins.

And what Limbaugh said was stupid and dickish. There’s no reason to make her a further target to try to defend Rush; this is furthering an ad hominem attack. It’s moving the goalposts; the issue here should be Limbaugh, a standard-bearer for my party who should not be.

She supports liberal causes? Say it ain’t so! I don’t care. I want Rush Limbaugh to stop embarrassing the party. And this is an utter embarrassment.

Finally, there’s just no reason to take apart Sandra Fluke/Joe the Plumber/911 widows/Whoever personally when they end up on the “wrong” side of the debate.

for my money i think that the fight against this mandate should still focus on the morning after abortion pill, not birth control or gender reassignment surgery.

this is very smart thinking cause what this whole kerfuffle did is make me realize is that I’m just not gonna use any sizable percentage of my one god-given life to defend the catholic church’s right to have incredibly silly contraception doctrines, especially after they enthusiastically lent their support to all the oppressive crap in obamacare what tramples so heartily on other people’s rights

Though honestly I don’t think the morning after pill is very aborty in practice, just in a highly theoretical yeah it could happen way. But at least they wouldn’t sound quite so doofusy if they planted their flag on that hill.

I’m just not gonna use any sizable percentage of my one god-given life to defend the catholic church’s

First they came for the Catholics, but I wasn’t Catholic…
then they came for my feets, and there was no one left to help…

yes, yes, yes, I know invoking Neimoller is a bit over the top here, but if one can’t make an over the top remark concerning feets, why, there would be no reason to have any over the top comments at all

The other day I met one of these contraception womens I think. You know – the kind where you can do all kinds of sex stuff with them and no worries nobody’s gonna get pregnant. She was really pretty too!

I remember wondering if I should tell her what Rick Santorum says about the contraceptions. You know… just to break the ice.

But I think she saw me looking at her and she pretended she got a phone call and wandered off.

I think one of the side effects of the contraception must be it makes people rude.

A new 3D projector for my theatre is cheaper than a addadikectomy or a cutadikectomy, and far better for my mental well being. I will petition my insurer for same and it is discrimination against sports fans if they refuse.

There are so many great things to attack in this proposal, mandate, whatever.

First, the religious liberty argument. That’s the easiest. Then there’s the “let’s force insurance companies to provide something for free” angle. Nothing is free, no matter how badly someone thinks it’s their “right” or whatnot. Then there are the lies about the costs. And I don’t know if it was here or at ace’s, but someone brought up the fact that planned parenthood gets federal funding for providing cheap contraception; if a college student can’t get birth control for under a grand a year, then PP has failed and we should defund it.

And miss fluke has lied about everything else so far, why couldn’t she be mr fluke?

She also, apparently, believes that it is discrimination deserving of legal action if “gender reassignment” surgeries are not covered by employer provided health insurance

Keep this up and we’ll become a bigger version of Greece (or Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina, etc) in no time.

A sense of self-entitlement up the wazoo (or the ultimate form of greed—ie getting something for nothing) has become quite pervasive here and elsewhere, in our hip, compassionate, loving, tolerant, modern, sophisticated era. So the following can be adjusted to “when the people find they can vote themselves money from laws forced upon the private sector…”

“When the people find they can vote themselves money from the treasury, that will herald the end of the republic.” — Benjamin Franklin

“Sandra Fluke is not what she is being sold as. Instead she is a liberal activist pushing some rather radical ideas.”–The College Politico

Instead, she’s a communist totalitarian, just like her pals in the Democrat Party, is more like it.

Also…she’s a slut. As are all Democrats and communists.

There isn’t one of them who hasn’t prostituted their talents (such as they are) in the service of spreading the vile plague of totalitarinism…and that’s the kind of prostitution that absolutely turns my stomach.

Rogers: Why are you always on about women, Stan?
Stan: I want to be one.
Reg: What?
Stan: I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to
call me Loretta.
Reg: What?
Loretta: It’s my right as a man.
Judith: Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?
Loretta: I want to have babies.
Reg: You want to have babies?!
Loretta: It’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants
them.
Reg: But…you can’t have babies!
Loretta: Don’t you opress me!
Reg: I’m not opressing you, Stan. You haven’t got a womb.
Where is the foetus going to gestate? You’re going to keep
it in a
box?
Loretta: Sniff.
Judith: Here, I’ve got an idea. Suppose you agree that he
can’t actually have babies, not having a womb, which is
nobody’s
fault, not even the Romans’, but that he can have the right
to have babies.
Rogers: Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for
your right to have babies, brother. Sister! Sorry.
Reg: What’s the point?
Rogers: What?
Reg: What’s the point of fighting for his right to have
babies, when he can’t have babies?
Rogers: It is symbolic of our struggle against opression.
Reg: Symbolic of his struggle against reality.

Perhaps Ms Fluke should take the bull by the horns so to speak and with other like minded individuals, corporations and political parties start their own university offering courses suitable to their political and societal leanings,and include appropriate health care coverage.
Let’s call it: FLUKE U.

The best response to Ms. Testimony’s appearance before congress was never personal attacks, but to kill it by suffocation; her testimony was simply worthless because it rests on a faulty premise that the feeral government should be in charge of such things.

It would have, without the sideshow, been easy to quietly discount her testimony by her political views, her associations and advocacy career. The unsoundness of the idea that the government should be in charge of who get’s what service at what cost, or privileging one service over another is enough.

Point out how that backfires depending on who is in power. Don’t give away that power.

It’s not my fault I am a man born in a woman’s body. Of course everyone should chip in and right this wrong.

While we’re on the subject, my parents didn’t provide for me when I was growing up. We didn’t have a pool, color TV, belong to a country club, have a beach house, and so on. It is not my fault I was born to those savages! We all have the right to parental reassignment. And the government should pay to fix it.

Clearly, the controversy is about government coverage of the price of recreational sex. I don’t recall any point that the constitution requires the government to pay for recreation of any kind. It is even difficult to get it under the scope of the much abused Commerce Clause since interstate commerce in sexual activity is against the law. The question before the forum is therefore: Should the government require insurance policies to cover other forms of recreation such as movies, TV, ball games, etc.

Many women have bad reactions to generic contraceptive pill—maybe that’s the 40% that Sandra Fluke is speaking of according to the Weekly Standard article cited in the quote taken from NPR by this Pontification.

The reasons for these potential problems is suggested by the following:

“The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has looked at the issue of brand-name versus generic oral contraception. It noted that doctors and patients “have questioned whether [these] products are clinically equivalent and interchangeable, as effective in preventing pregnancy, and have similar occurrences of side effects,” in a committee statement published in August 2007.”

JD – You could feed Sandra a bunch of those antidepressants that don’t work to suppress her sex drive, then she would not need people to pay for her contraception, except for regularly covered medical purposes prescribed by her doctor.

This is especially sad since I suspect the Catholic Church knew these Alinsky-style tactics would be used (e.g., individuals infiltrating the church and using tolerance as a guise to subvert its principles) but it still couldn’t stop it. The only ways for the Church to stop this were either to use government power in the short term or trust transparency, information and reason to empower people in the long term.

The government should protect religion but it’s a slippery slope in today’s world. The more you seek government protection, the more it opens the door to government regulations. If it’s not too late, it’s better to trust transparency, information and reason — it’s smarter and IMO the Christian response — but it’s no wonder Obama and the Democrats prefer government mandates. Perhaps that’s even why Obama pines for the ease and convenience of being President of a totalitarian/authoritarian state like China.

That’s true, Simon. After 9/11, many conservatives worried that government was watching and controlling us more in public places and on public transportation. Now many liberals worry that government will watch and control their sexual lives. Are these two sides to the same coin?

Many women have bad reactions to generic contraceptive pill—maybe that’s the 40% that Sandra Fluke is speaking of

So instead of $9 a month it’s $26 a month.

That is not $3000, or $87 z month.

She radically inflated the price of something and extended the duration in her example to three years as well. Why? Because the democrats like to use absurd examples to justify exceptions to our fundamental rights… which also mean making our rights at their discretion. And every time they win, they follow up with how this is precedent.

$3000 was a dishonest figure for birth control. Fluke owes the American people an apology for her dishonest attack on religious freedom.

The progressives don’t mind, since they expect only people like themselves to wield power.

Great point, Simon. The democrats will be very upset when a GOP president notes Obama’s excesses as precedent when he goes beyond the powers we understood the president to have in 2007. Of course, they get away with this kind of contradiction all the time, but the damage is done and every president runs into challenges that tempt abusing his power.

More generally, all this control of our private business is predicated on how those in control are liberals and therefore ‘right’.

I’m sure the big drug companies aren’t exactly bothered by comparisons in which they’ll come out in shining glory.

If the leftwing OWS crowd wants to focus on a part of corporate America that deserves to have a stink raised about it, I admit I won’t be too bothered if their ire is directed at Big Pharma. Even more so since pharmaceutical companies have been among the major boosters of Obamacare and are helping make the cost of medical care higher than it otherwise would be.

If there is an unholy cabal (or crony capitalism to the max) that will happily be in bed with Obama, or will be enablers to one another, it can be identified by reading between the lines of this text:

istockanalyst.com, February 2012: The medical community is abuzz over recent statements made by Irving Kirsch, the Associate Director of the Placebo Studies Program at Harvard Medical School.

On February 19, “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl interviewed Kirsch, who essentially stated that antidepressant prescription drugs are a giant, fraudulent waste of money. He said so in far less offensive terms, of course, but he said it nonetheless.

And the pharmaceutical industry knows very well how to interpret his report that “the difference between the effect of a placebo and the effect of an antidepressant is minimal for most people.”

As CBS News states, “Kirsch’s views are of vital interest to the 17 million Americans who take the drugs, including children as young as six, and to the pharmaceutical industry that brings in $11.3 billion a year selling them.”

Kirsch, who has his Ph.D. in psychology, has put 36 years into studying the placebo effect: the positive physical and psychological influence of dummy drugs on patients. So he has a solid academic leg to stand on when he says that placebos work nearly or just as well as the real deal in treating irritable bowel syndrome, repetitive strain injuries, ulcers and Parkinson’s disease, among other physical disorders.

If true, his postulation begs the question: If patients’ minds and bodies can be so thoroughly faked out, where does that leave the pharmaceutical industry? With more and more North Americans and Europeans taking medication for a myriad of complaints, a strong argument can be made that the West just needs to suck it up and deal with it.

[T]he American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders tried to add shyness and common grief – such as at the loss of a loved one – to the list of listed disorders, all but demanding more drugs be prescribed.

During the “60 Minutes” interview, [Kirsch] cited a study of osteoarthritic patients where some participants received actual knee surgeries and others were merely cut open and sewed right back up. The researchers actually found that the latter group could walk and climb better than their actually-operated-upon fellow lab rats for a full year. After the two-year mark “there was no difference at all between the real surgery and the sham surgery.“

“2.The interview is also a nice piece of evidence that it’s not GOPers who are obsessed with social issues. Fact is, folks like Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann can’t not engage on social issues because (a) MSM interviewers will never not bring them up and (b) MSM interviewers won’t just let conservative opinions stand; they’ll push for an explanation. When’s the last time you’ve seen an interview like this in reverse — a show host pushing a lib for an explanation as to why they support gay marriage?”

Libtards, regardless of the fall on the Left/Right divide, intimating that this discussion on social issues originated with the ultra conservatives is a bold-faced lie.

Yeah, and maybe she just pulled that $3,000 figure out of her fat ass, like lying little political whores employed by the Democrats do about ten thousand times a day.

But, whether it’s one dollar or three thousand dollars, I ain’t paying for birth control for people who attend universities that cost $40,000 a year. They can pay their own damned bills.

I’m not paying taxes so that the government can force me onto health insurance, and them force health insurance providers to give rich kids at Georgetown cut rate birth control, which is ultimately going to paid for by me. That’s just theft, and I’m not interested in paying people to rob me blind. I’m paying taxes so the government will secure my rights, like it says in the founding document of this country.

And, if they continue to use government to steal from me (taking my rights away, instead of securing my rights) and give my money to people like Sandra Fluke, then I’m going to exercise my right to alter or abolish the government.

According to the Planned Parenthood (PLANNED PARENTHOOD!) website birth control costs $15-$50 per month. At the high end that’s less than half the cost of your average college student’s daily outlay at Starbucks.

This has nothing to do with a student’s ability to pay, and everything to do with the fast-spreading disease known as the Entitlement Mentality (Marxismus Nannystatus).

Obamacare specifically extends the age under which young people are covered by their parents’ policy to 26 so that there will be nothing for college students to worry about when it comes to health care.

It’s all about “equality” enforced at the end of a federal governing rule-of-law gun.

“ARLINGTON, Va. (Feb. 22, 2012) — A segment, aired Sunday night on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” claiming there is no effective difference between antidepressants and placebos is, “…not just wrong, but irresponsible and dangerous reporting,” said the President of the American Psychiatric Association John Oldham, M.D.

The story, which centers around a study conducted by psychologist Irving Kirsch, Ph.D., claims that placebos are just as effective as antidepressants in the treatment of depression even though Kirsch’s conclusions were widely discredited by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), European Medicine Agency (EMA), and clinical psychiatrists. Jeffrey Lieberman, M.D., a psychiatrist and world-renowned expert on psychopharmacology noted that, “Kirsch has badly misinterpreted the data and his conclusion is at odds with common clinical experience. He has communicated a message that could potentially cause suffering and harm to patients with mood disorders.” Dr. Lieberman went on to say, “There is abundant evidence that supports the efficacy of antidepressants above and beyond the effects of placebo.”

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) acknowledges medications aren’t always the first choice in treating depression and the current version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) recognizes that depression occurs with differing levels of severity. The APA’s Treatment Guidelines on depression recommend psychotherapy first for mild to moderate depression, and only after this approach falls short should the physician decide whether or not antidepressants are needed in conjunction with psychotherapy.

The APA’s claims on the effectiveness of antidepressants are supported and documented through the work of the Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for drug licensing in the United States. The FDA carefully reviews years of studies before making the decision to approve medications for specific treatments and have consistently approved and upheld the effectiveness of various antidepressant medications…….”

The Democrats didn’t want Sandra Fluke to be a witness. What the Other McCain is giving is a reason for the rule about advance notice, but the democrats did NOT want to put Sandra Fluke up as a witness.

They wanted to pretend that they had wanted her to be a witness, and the Republicans didn’t want her to be a witness because they weren’t interested in hearing from “women” or real live cases of people affected by the regulation.

Having her stopped from being a witness would attract far more attention to what she had to say, and it would all go without any challenge.

They did this because this was a losing issue for President Obama and the Democrats, so they needed to shut the Republicans up, and they mostly did.

The key point, and not even for the hearings, but for press releases (which have to be done at the point in time when the media is interested in the story) is not really what else Sandra Fluke was for, but simply that Sandra Fluke was not a typical college student and her interests were not limited to contraception.

“They wanted to pretend that they had wanted her to be a witness, and the Republicans didn’t want her to be a witness because they weren’t interested in hearing from “women” or real live cases of people affected by the regulation.”

Sammy – I thought Republicans did not want her as a witness because the issue was the constitutionality of the mandated coverage and limited conscience exemptions coming out of HHS, not the availability, cost and access to contraception as the Democrats have framed the issue.

It’s a contraceptive pill, Aaron. It disrupts ovulation. It has absolutely no effect on an established pregnancy and there is no direct evidence of interference with implantation. The short window of action conforms with the evidence that the mechanism to prevent pregnancy is ovulation suppression.

“Abortion pill” is a misnomer. It’s a contraceptive, not mifepristone.

Also the drum to beat is not an exaggerated fury over post coital use of levonogestrel.

That argument accepts half the proressive premise that worthiness of a drug or its conformation with anyone’s given conscience is the determining and overriding issue. That’s not it. The drum to beat is goverment control. It wouldnt matter if Ms What’s her name this week was promoting appendectomies without copay – it would be just as wrong.

I’m not thinking. I was doing other things. I see that what I said apparently wasn’t parsed correctly.

Now I’m thinking – what’s going on. The original hearing at which Sandra Fluke was excluded took place all the way back on February 15!!

The CNN video is from an unofficial “hearing” held a week later, which is still more than a week before Rush Limbaugh made his comments.

They wanted to pretend:

1) that they had actually wanted her to be a witness, and

2) [that] the Republicans didn’t want her to be a witness because they weren’t interested in hearing from “women” or real live cases of people affected by the regulation.

They wanted to pretend two [2] things.

They didn’t want her to be a witness – it would have attracted no attention or not any of the kind of news coverage and attention that they would get later at their staged compensatory make-up “hearing” showcasing her.

They wanted the issue.

They also had to supply a false reason for why she was rejected. They had just about guaranteed the Republicans wouldn’t take her.

Sammy – I thought Republicans did not want her as a witness because the issue was the constitutionality of the mandated coverage and limited conscience exemptions coming out of HHS, not the availability, cost and access to contraception as the Democrats have framed the issue.

Yes, but I’m reading this technical thing too.

She didn’t belong on that panel though. She was talking about the alleged necvessity of the coverage.

This is the prepared testimony of Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Executive Director of Americans United For Separation of Church and State, whom the Democrats pulled back at the last minute, and told not to come:

Excerpt: “No one would argue that a religious employer could legally object to an employee using
money from her paycheck to pay for contraceptives. Why then should the religious
employer have the right to object to a woman obtaining contraceptives from an insurance
company when the employer has no connection to that coverage?…

(The counterargument is that that affects the price, and it’s not like using money from her paycheck. If it is, what’s the problem? The Democrats had to make an argument that it was extremely expensive and unaffordable for some.)

Barry Lynn prepared testimomny also has:

“Indeed, the Catholic Bishops are arguing that even owners of a Taco Bell should be able to act upon a “corporate conscience” and deny women coverage of birth control based on a religious objection. Similarly, in a Congressional hearing in November, witnesses from the Christian Medical Association and the Alliance for Catholic Heath Care also argued that the religious exemption should include individual employers. If Congress were to expand the exemption to individuals, the exemption could easily end up swallowing the rule. Employees would have no real protections, as anyone could simply refuse to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives. Employees would not necessarily even know before they accept a job whether or not they would be granted coverage for preventative care services offered to other Americans.”

That was a very critical bit of insight you offered a few weeks ago re reading pharma/med lit – context is everything and terms without understanding the inside meaning can be very misleading. A red flag of caution and one I took note of.

The O’Henry twist in this whole thing is, that in a few years, Obamacare, if implemented, would stop having insurance companies pay for women’s birth control pills.

Just like they want the “morning after pill” to be available without a prescription, they should want birth control pills to be available without a prescription, as they are in Mexico, or to Americans who cross the border to buy them.

The reason they are not available without a prescription is that no drug company wants to file a petition with the FDA to allow that. They can charge more money if they require a prescription because often a third party is paying for it and cost is no object.

However, once Obamacare is in place, the Medical Advisory Board would really want to see them available without a prescription, not just because many of them would be social liberals who want birth control to be readily available, at a moment’s notice, without embarassment, even to 15 year olds contemplating sex, or to their older boyfriends, but because this would cut down on the number of doctor visits, as many visits are made just to get a prescription renewed.

Once over the counter, like Prilosec, they would no longer be covered by insurance!! *

But the drug companies would have to drop their prices up to half so they don’t want it. However, pressure could be brought to bear. The American Journal of Public Health editorialized as far back as 1993 for making birth control pills available over-the-counter.

Women support OTC access to oral contraceptives, but express an interest in accessing pharmacist counseling. On the basis of these data, the Women’s Health Practice and Research Network of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy supports changing oral contraceptives to OTC status under two conditions: that they are sold where a pharmacist is on duty and that there are mechanisms in place to cover OTC contraceptives through Medicaid. Future research should address the issues of out-of-pocket costs to individuals, label-comprehension studies, and models for pharmacist reimbursement for time spent counseling on contraception.

The Obamacare Independent Medical Advisory Board – and higher people in the government – would be almost sure to latch on to this (making it available on the authority of a pharmacist) And try to make it happen. Especially considering the cost savings – for the insurance plans.

* Except that in the meantime Catholic hospitals, or formerly Catholic hospitals, would be paying for insurance policies that included other things their religion opposes.